One of the most heated debates in education circles in recent years has been whether whole language instruction benefits the reading achievement of young children. Thousands of educators across the United States initially embraced whole language as a viable alternative to the traditional (basal) instruction that had dominated reading instruction since colonial times. Whole language instruction was especially appealing because of its emphasis on (1) whole piece of literature and functional language as opposed to abridgments, adaptations, or segmented texts; (2) individual students’ choice as opposed to teacher-sponsored, whole-class assignments; and (3) integrated language experiences as opposed to direct instruction in isolated skill sequences, In recent years, however, declining reading achievement test scores, especially in some states where whole language instruction has been implemented most thoroughly, have raised questions about the efficacy of this approach. (Johnson, 1994)

What whole language teachers share, is not a method as much as a perspective on the meaning of literacy, how literacy develops, how teachers can best support students’ reading and writing development, and the centrality of literacy in a democratic society. Whole language teachers believe that the purpose of literacy instruction is to help students learn to use reading and writing to fulfill a variety of intentions across a range of socio-cultural settings. (Delpit, 1995) These intentions may include getting along in school, but can also involve reading critically, writing to express deep feelings, and reading as a means of participating in cultural and religious rituals. Whole language teachers assume that readers and writers use a range of cues (e.g., conventions of print, their knowledge of the physical and social world, etc.) to make sense with and from texts. Whole language teachers also believe that children learn to read and write by being immersed in various reading and writing practices with the active support and direction of their teachers.
Whole language theory and practice are not static. Developments in linguistics and socio-linguistics have led whole language theorists to broaden their understandings of the cues readers and writers use in the process of reading and writing and the range of social practices that count as reading and writing. Many whole language teachers, influenced by developments in critical theory, have begun to make a place for critical literacy in their classrooms.

Arguments In Favor Of Whole Language Instruction
Valuing Difference In Whole Language Classrooms
The emphasis on students’ role in meaning making in whole language theory makes it easier for students in whole language classrooms to make connections between their lives in school and their out-of-school lives. Writing in whole language classrooms, for example, draws on children’s personal experiences, enabling a child who lives in an old apartment building to write a story about cockroaches and another child to write a letter to her dead grandfather. Reading in whole language classrooms also encourages students to draw on their background knowledge and experience – including their experience with other texts – as they construct meaning from texts. Of course, these experiences are never merely personal, since children’s lives unfold in rich social and cultural contexts. Therefore, by assigning a central role for the reader in making sense of texts, whole language classrooms make a place for a range of understandings based on the race-, class-, culture-, and gender-based experiences of students. (Johnson, 1994)

Whole language teachers also accommodate student differences by acknowledging a range of literacy practices (i.e., students reading and writing for many purposes) and including a variety of reading and writing materials in their classrooms. Additionally, libraries in whole language classrooms are carefully stocked with materials that represent cultural diversity and raise important social, ethical, and historical questions.

Learning To Live With Conflict
Although whole language classrooms offer hospitable contexts for a range of social and cultural voices, they are also places where meanings are frequently contested. Literature sharing groups, peer writing conferences, small group projects, and whole class discussions of local and global issues (Primary Voices, November, 1994) often lead to conflict as students encounter views different from their own. Whole language teachers are not satisfied with merely exposing students to differences in opinion, however. They also explicitly teach students the skills needed to productively engage different points of view. A number of schools in Toronto, for example, are exploring Peace-making (Primary Voices, November, 1994; Fine, 1995; Fine, Lacey, & Baer, 1995) and other peer mediation curricula to enable children, starting at an early age, to acknowledge differences and to talk through conflicts as they occur. In these classrooms there are opportunities for children to articulate their versions of experience, to learn about the experiences and understandings of others, and to develop language and tools needed for active participation in a democratic community. These discussions take place within a framework agreed upon by students and teachers that ensures fairness and safety for all participants.

Arguments Against Whole Language Instruction
Because many whole language teachers have not yet discovered this political potential, whole language itself is sometimes criticized for being apolitical (Kelly, 1995; Vibert, 1995). Other teachers recognize the promise of whole language but fail to exploit it fully (Edelsky, 1994). Some versions of whole language may even work to sustain social and economic inequities.

Whole Language And Exclusionary Literacies
The "skills" of school literacy, because they so closely resemble the literacy practices of middle- and upper-class families, can create an exclusionary literacy in which the reading and writing practices of one group count as "literacy," and the literacy practices of others groups count for little. Sociolinguistic influences have made room within whole language for a range of literacy practices. There is, however, a tendency in the whole language literature to emphasize reading practices associated with middle-class homes, particularly storybook reading. Certainly, teachers who expose students to a rich repertoire of stories issue powerful invitations to their students to join the community of readers. Yet, children and families who are not "storybook literate" are no more illiterate than those of us who do not understand legal contracts or insurance policies. Homes that are not filled with storybooks are frequently rich in other kinds of literacies. A Gospel read to a congregation, and bits from the newspaper read at the breakfast table, for example, involve people in different ways of talking, interacting, thinking, valuing, and believing. Different ways of reading also assign more or less authority to the text itself. Whole language classrooms tend to privilege the role of the reader in making sense of texts. This emphasis on the reader's role in meaning making can conflict with certain cultural practices that venerate the authority of texts. When one of the authors taught third grade, for example, a picture of a gravestone in a book he read to his class stimulated a discussion of how long people lived. After much discussion the class agreed that few people live beyond 100 years. The following day Ali approached his teacher and sternly told him, "My dad said Noah lived to be 950 years old." Here the teacher's emphasis on the role of readers in making sense of texts risked denying a kind of literacy in Ali's home that granted authority to particular interpretations of certain texts.

Another way the pedagogical practices in some whole language classrooms can create an exclusionary literacy is by denying some students explicit instruction in the skills needed to get along in school. Lisa Delpit (1995) has expressed her concern that progressive literacy practices may not teach many Black children the White, middle-class discourse practices favored by schools, thereby jeopardizing Black students' academic future. In other words, the skills of the social practice of storybook reading are not the same as the skills of school literacy, and children who do not come to school already in possession of these middle-class skills can have a very difficult time in school. Although we are confident that many whole language classrooms do offer students experiences with a range of literacy practices, Delpit's concerns must be taken seriously.

Whole Language And The Cult Of The Individual
Several critiques of whole language practice have implicated whole language in sustaining the ideology of individualism through its emphasis on individual meaning-making and student ownership. Kelly (1995), for example, worries that whole language by "centering the individual as meaning-maker extraordinaire displaces the impact of social (dis)orders of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy on the production and reproduction of meaning" (p. 13). Moorman et al. (1994) argue that the individualistic tendencies of whole language reinforce "the message that the private should prevail over the public and the political" (p. 326).